Klima og miljø: til dig der arbejder med klima og miljø i skolen og i kirken
Spændende links om kirkernes engagement i klimakampen:
Skaberværkets dag:
meget spændende side med supergode links fra den norske kirke. Her er masser af oplysninger om miljøets tilstand og debatstof for alle!:
www.kirken.no/index.cfm?event=doLink&famID=46286%0d%0a%0d%0a
www.kirken.no/index.cfm?event=doLink&famId=8672
Radiointerview
KLIMAFORANDRINGERNE OG ETIKKEN 1:3
Klimaforandringer er en udfordring til vores etik, tro og eksistens.
Udfordringen består ikke blot i at skabe et bæredygtigt samfund, men også i at afklare de dybereliggende spørgsmål, som klimaforandringen konfronterer os med.
I det første af tre programmer i fortæller klimaminister Connie Hedegaard om sit syn på de etiske problemstillinger klimaforandringerne stiller os overfor.
Desuden belyser biskop Niels Henrik Arendt teologiske problemstillinger, der springer ud af den nye bevidsthed om ændringerne i vores fremtidige globale levevilkår.
KLIMAFORANDRINGERNE OG ETIKKEN 2:3
ARC: The Alliance of Religions and Conservation
ARC is a secular body that helps the major religions of the world to develop their own environmental programmes, based on their own core teachings, beliefs and practices.
We help the religions link with key environmental organisations – creating powerful alliances between faith communities and conservation groups.
ARC was founded in 1995 by HRH Prince Philip. We now work with 11 major faiths through the key traditions within each faith.
EKKLESIA
En engelsk side. Her lægges løbende nyheder ind om kirker og miljø
Christian Ecology Link
CEL is a multi-denominational UK Christian organisation
for people concerned about the Environment
Videotale som Rowan Willams ”holdt” (eller som blev vist) på klimatopmødet på Bali
Video med den engelske ærkebiskops, Rowan Willams, nytårstale 2007: Gud kender ikke til spild!
Cooling Earth's Climate as a Matter of Faith
NEW YORK, New York, December 24, 2007 (ENS) - World Council of Churches General Secretary Dr. Samuel Kobia is calling concerns about climate change "a matter of faith" and says the Christian faith community must be at the vanguard of the response to global warming.
"I think as Christians we should be the ones to lead the way so that others then can follow because for us it is not just a matter of political or economic or ecological concern it is a matter of faith," Kobia said Thursday in New York.
"We have seen that when we become careless the effect is what we are seeing now with global warming," he said.
An ordained minister in the Methodist Church in his native Kenya, Kobia is in the United States for meetings with heads of churches and other ecumenical leaders, including Church World Service Executive Director and CEO John McCullough.
Church World Service is a member of the Central Committee, the chief governing body of the World Council of Churches, which represents over 560 million Christians around the world.
World Council of Churches General Secretary Dr. Samuel Kobia (Photo © Peter Williams/WCC)
Although the subject of climate change has only recently become a focus of global concern, Kobia said the World Council of Churches, WCC, is not a newcomer to the debate.
"The WCC has had a program around climate change since 1992. We have books on eco-theology. We called the program Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation. We talked about the danger the approach to development has to the integrity of creation. Therefore, for us it is not a new idea."
Kobia says he would like to invite the entire Christian community to be involved in the work on climate change.
"It is a gospel imperative for churches to be involved in the work on climate change. It is a gospel imperative because human beings are entrusted with the rest of God's creation," he said. "It is there for us not to plunder and not to dominate, but to care."
The Church World Service is accelerating its own advocacy campaign on climate change, as well as advocacy work with faith-based and other partners in Washington, pressing U.S. policymakers and lawmakers to raise the bar on this country's commitments to combat the crisis.
Along with the National Council of Churches and the National Catholic Rural Life Conference, Church World Service filed a brief in 2006 supporting the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and 11 other states in the lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, for the EPA's failure to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
Despite the court's finding against the EPA in April this year, the Bush administration Thursday announced that it will block efforts by California, Maryland, and 15 other states to cut emissions of global warming gases from cars and trucks.
Rev. Sally Bingham with an energy saving compact fluorescent bulb (Photo courtesy The Episcopal Diocese of California)
Across the United States, religious leaders are working to curb climate change.
Rev. Sally Bingham, whose title is "environmental minister" at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, is also president of the Regeneration Project and Interfaith Power and Light.
The Regeneration Project seeks to "deepen the connection between ecology and faith" and the Interfaith Power and Light project is specifically focused on global warming, including how churches can reduce their own electricity bills.
"Ten years ago people thought I was bringing political issues to the pulpit and that I was an environmentalist looking for a platform," Bingham said. "But there has just been an overwhelming shift in that idea and now everybody wants to hear about it. It's been an amazing transformation."
The Interfaith Power and Light effort began in 1998 with Episcopal Power and Light and the support of Grace Cathedral as a unique coalition of Episcopal churches aggregated to purchase renewable energy.
Bingham says, "In 2001, we co-founded California Interfaith Power and Light, which helps people of faith in California to organize and promote positive environmental change around energy and global warming. Nationally, we are working to establish Interfaith Power and Light programs in every state."
On its website, the Regeneration Project encourages Americans to contact their political representatives about climate change, says, "Tell them global warming is a religious issue, that the U.S. must participate in strong and fair international agreements and adopt strong national policy. This is the most important thing you can do right now!"
Catholics have the moral support of Pope Benedict XVI in their efforts to restore a healthy climate. In his World Day of Peace Message for January 1, 2008, the Pope says,
Pope Benedict XVI (Photo courtesy The Vatican)
"The family needs a home, a fit environment in which to develop its proper relationships. For the human family, this home is the Earth, the environment that God the Creator has given us to inhabit with creativity and responsibility. We need to care for the environment: it has been entrusted to men and women to be protected and cultivated with responsible freedom, with the good of all as a constant guiding criterion."
"One area where there is a particular need to intensify dialogue between nations is that of the stewardship of the Earth's energy resources," said the Pope.
"The technologically advanced countries are facing two pressing needs in this regard: on the one hand, to reassess the high levels of consumption due to the present model of development, and on the other hand to invest sufficient resources in the search for alternative sources of energy and for greater energy efficiency," he said.
"Humanity today is rightly concerned about the ecological balance of tomorrow," said the Pope. "It is important for assessments in this regard to be carried out prudently, in dialogue with experts and people of wisdom, uninhibited by ideological pressure to draw hasty conclusions, and above all with the aim of reaching agreement on a model of sustainable development capable of ensuring the well-being of all while respecting environmental balances."
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2007. All rights reserved.
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2007/2007-12-24-01.asp
New Book Teaches Children How to Positively Impact the Environment With Creative, Fun Characters and Illustrations
Three Thieves' New Eco-Friendly Wine Packaging Steals the Spotlight
East Met West Earlier: Ancient Chinese Wheat Tells the Tale
Sea Shepherd to Rename its Whale Defending ship the Steve Irwin
It's Easy Being Green This Holiday Season at the EcoMall
New Interactive Website Offers Balanced View of Industrial Environmental Performance
Ford Delivers First Escape Plug-In Hybrid to Southern California Edison
Toyota Updates Progress on Environmental Goals
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Approves VeruTEK's Green Remediation Technology
Murphy & Falcon P.A. Files Maryland's First Class Action Suit For Fly Ash Dump Contamination by Constellation
ADVISORY: Maryland's First Class Action Suit for Ash Dump Contamination
MacKenzie River Delta, Canada
NASA
License ENS News
for websites and newsletters
Send a news story to ENS editors
Upload environmental news videos
Share ENS stories with the world
SE VIDEO fra den fælleskirkelige klima- og miljø konference på Bali!
Alverdens kristne og kirker har også medansvar for vores klodes tilstand.
Her i kirken kan du komme med dine skole- og gymnasieklasser og arbejde med klima- og miljøspørgsmål. For klodens klimaproblemer har også at gøre med fattigdom, menneskesyn, etik, hjælp og samarbejde og ikke mindst med den måde vi omgås vores klodes uerstattelige ressurser: næstekærlighed og etik handler ikke kun om hvordan vi mennesker omgås hinanden, men i lige så høj grad om den måde vi forvalter vores fælles livsgrundlag - vores klode: JORDEN - på.
Sammen med dig kan vi lave spændende og levende undervisning om:
@ Menneskerne på kloden
@Fordelingen af ressurser: Mad, vand
@Hjælp: hvad er hjælp? Hvordan hjælper vi andre i nød? Hvorfor?
@Sygdom og sygdomsbekæmpelse
@Strategier for bæredygtig udvikling
@Vores økologiske fodaftryk
Undervisningen er oplevelsesbaseret læring: Vi skriver simuleringer til jer, laver case-stories, går i billedværkstedet m.m.m.
Undervisningen kan foregå både som hel- ellerr flerdagsprojekter på kirkeskolen eller som enkeltstående besøg. Hvad du end måtte vælge så vil vi altid i samarbejde med dig og din klasse udvikle netop det indhold i besøget som I har brug for.
Kontakt sognemedhjælper Per Jensen eller ring på 45856967 og fortæl om dine idéer og ønsker.
Links til sider om klima og miljø:
Europæiske kirkers miljø-netværk
Den norske kirkes miljøside
Svenska Kyrkans miljø-side
Quiz om dit økologiske fodaftryk
Hjemmeside om vores økologiske fodafryk
Retfærdig handel - fair trade
ARTIKLER OG TEKSTER:
Den svenske kirke vil invitere ledere fra alverdens trossamfund til tværreligiøs klimakonference
Sweden gears up for interfaith climate summit in 2008
Ecumenical News International-07-0972
By Vanya Walker-Leigh
Nusa Dua, Indonesia, 14 December (ENI)--The (Lutheran) Church of Sweden says it is to convene an interfaith climate summit in Uppsala, Sweden immediately before a United Nations climate change conference in Poland in 2008.
"On the basis of my experience here in Bali, I am all the more convinced this kind of initiative is absolutely urgent," the Rev. Henrik Grape, sustainable development officer at the Church of Sweden told Ecumenical News International, during the final stages of the 3-14 December UN climate change talks in Bali, Indonesia.
Government negotiators at the Bali talks are seeking to inject new safeguards into negotiations for a global agreement to fight climate change after 2012, the target date for some nations to reduce climate-change inducing emissions under the first phase of a protocol that was agreed at Kyoto, Japan in 1997.
The negotiators hope the global pact will be adopted by the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen in 2009, which follows the meeting scheduled for 2008 in Poland.
In a statement presented to the Bali conference on 14 December, the Geneva-based World Council of Churches said the world's faiths could act as "agents of change" for a global response to climate change.
"Societies must shift to a new paradigm where the operative principles are ethics, justice, equity, solidarity, human development and environmental conservation," the WCC stated.
The Swedish interfaith gathering on 28-29 November is to be hosted by the Archbishop of Sweden, Anders Wejryd, and will seek to deliver a strong ethical and religious message on issues such as declining food and water supplies in many developing countries, Grape told ENI.
Between 30 and 40 religious leaders from the world's main faith traditions are to be invited to the meeting, whose provisional programme includes an inter-religious ceremony in Uppsala cathedral.
"I can already say that the vice-president of the European Commission, Margot Wallström, has given us strong support, and will be actively involved, as will Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank and Nobel [Peace Prize] Laureate," said Grape.
The Swedish church hopes that a manifesto drawn up at the Uppsala meeting will be presented by Archbishop Wejryd to a formal session of the UN conference, scheduled to meet from 1 to 12 December 2008 in Poznan, western Poland.
"We hope that this would start a dynamic on-going process, both within the UN climate change meetings and outside them," said Grape. "We hope that from being a Church of Sweden initiative this will grow into a broadly-based ecumenical one, and eventual leadership by the largest Christian denomination, the Roman Catholic Church, would certainly be a welcome development." [448 words]
Kronik 12.12.2007 04:00
fra Fyns Stiftstidende
Kirken skal være grøn
Med inspiration fra det internationale religiøse samfund arbejdes der i stigende grad i folkekirken med miljøspørgsmål. Det har længe været et tema i vore nabolande
En af de kirkeledere, jeg respekterer allermest, bærer titel af patriark og er bosiddende i Istanbul. Han er en ældre herre med langt hvidt skæg. Som det sømmer sig for en patriark i den ortodokse kirke, går han med en høj sort hat, og han bærer en lang sort præstekjole. Mandens navn er Bartolomæus den første, og han er overhoved for mellem tre og fire millioner ortodokse kristne.
Sammenlignet med paven er Bartolomæus' magt begrænset. Men gennem de seneste år har han fået en kolossal betydning for miljøbevægelsen. Han er blevet en vigtig fortaler for menneskehedens beskyttelse af Guds skaberværk, og derfor har han fået tilnavnet "den grønne patriark".
Fra den 7. til den 12. september i år stod Bartolomæus og hans organisation, "Religion, Science and the Environment" (www.rsesymposia.org), bag en sejlende miljøkonference, der blev holdt ud for Grønlands vestkyst. Konferencen fandt sted på krydstogtskibet M/S Fram, og formålet var at afklare, om det er muligt for videnskab og religion i forening at afværge en fremtidig økologisk katastrofe for Jorden.
Om bord var der repræsentanter fra verdens hovedreligioner samt en gruppe mænd og kvinder med forstand på økologi, økonomi, teologi, geologi, biologi, fysik, medicin, is, klima og energiteknologi. Nogle af konferencens deltagere havde desuden indsigt i de politiske og traktatmæssige forhold i verden.
En af deltagerne var Grønlands biskop Sofie Petersen. Hun fortæller, at man med enorme isbjerge som baggrund indledte konferencen med en stille bøn på skibsdækket. Hun beskriver det som en stærk oplevelse at stå dér og bede sammen med græskortodokse og katolske kristne, jøder, shia- og sunnimuslimer, buddhister, hinduer samt repræsentanter fra inuit fra Grønland og Alaska.
En anden dansk deltager, Minik Rosing, der er professor i geologi ved Statens Naturhistoriske Museum, fortæller fra sit ophold på M/S Fram, at "dagene gik med dybt interessante diskussioner og foredrag, som hver for sig var ubetalelige og for det meste fremført med et fantastisk overskud af humor og fortælleglæde". Ifølge Rosing lykkedes det på konferencen at finde en fælles forståelse med hensyn til de globale klimaproblemer. Og man enedes om, "at der findes en lang række grunde, som hver for sig taler for, at verdens befolkninger og politikere hurtigst muligt påbegynder en omlægning af deres energiforbrug" .
Den sydafrikanske ærkebiskop, Desmond Tutu, er en anden kirkeleder, der har engageret sig i kampen for miljøet og mod klimaforandringerne. På FN's verdens miljødag den 5. juni i år prædikede han ved en tv-transmitteret gudstjeneste i Ishavskatedralen i Tromsø. Tutu opfordrede i sin prædiken til ansvarlighed over for Jorden. Blandt andet for de fattiges skyld, idet de fattige og mest sårbare for øjeblikket bliver hårdest ramt af klimaforandringerne. Men naturligvis også for Jordens egen skyld, der, hvis vi fortsætter på samme måde, "vil blive lige så gold som Månen".
En otte ton tung isblok var anbragt i kirken, og mens der var gudstjeneste, kunne man se isblokken smelte. Med sin stille dryppen blev den et stærkt symbol på det, som sker verden over: at isen smelter på grund af global opvarmning.
Når kirkeledere verden rundt går aktivt ind i kampen for miljøet, skyldes det blandt andet overbevisningen om, at Gud gennem milliarder af år har skabt og formet livet på Jorden. Samtidig har Gud gjort os ansvarlige for Jorden, og derfor kan vi ikke bare gøre nøjagtig, hvad vi har lyst til. Vi kan ikke hæmningsløst bruge af Jordens ressourcer. På det grundlag kan kirkerne tale imod en rendyrket materialisme og for en ansvarlighed over for natur og miljø.
Kirkerne i vore nabolande er for længst begyndt at beskæftige sig med miljøspørgsmål.
I den norske kirke er miljøet kommet højt på dagsordenen. De norske biskopper udtaler sig om ansvaret for miljøet, og mange menigheder forsøger at udvise miljørigtig adfærd. I Den norske Kirke kan en menighed, der opfylder bestemte kriterier (hvis man eksempelvis får foretaget energitjek på kirkens bygninger, sorterer affald, indkøber fair trade varer og holder miljøgudstjenester) opnå retten til at kalde sig for en "grøn menighed". Senest har klima- og miljødebatten haft en meget fremtrædende plads på Den norske Kirkes kirkemøde, der blev afholdt i november.
I den svenske kirke er klima og miljø også et varmt emne. Man taler om at fremme en bæredygtig livsstil, og ligesom i Norge har menighederne mulighed for at blive anerkendt som "grønne menigheder". Desuden har ærkebiskoppen i Den svenske Kirke, Anders Wejryd, taget initiativ til, at der i 2008 holdes en tværreligiøs klimakonference.
I Finland taler de lutherske biskopper om nødvendigheden af økologisk ansvarlighed. Hvad vi gør - eller undlader at gøre - siger den finske biskop, Jukka Paarma, får konsekvenser for Guds skaberværk. Jukka Paarma tilføjer, at det gode liv ikke bør bygges på et stort forbrug og høj materiel levestandard, men på omsorg, mental balance, spiritualitet og glæden ved fællesskaber. Derfor er det nødvendigt med økologisk ansvarlighed.
I begyndelsen af september i år blev der holdt et stort europæisk kirkemøde i Sibiu i Rumænien. Jeg deltog sammen med 13 andre delegater fra folkekirken. Blandt kirkemødets 2500 delegater var der repræsentanter fra de ortodokse kirker, Den katolske Kirke samt de mange protestantiske kirker. De fleste europæiske kirker var dermed repræsenteret, og ved mødets afslutning gav kirkerne i fællesskab en række anbefalinger til de europæiske kirker.
En enig dansk delegation kunne helt og fuldt tilslutte sig disse anbefalinger, der henstillede til kirkerne, at de engagerer sig i miljøspørgsmål og søger at fremme en bæredygtig livsstil. Man henstillede også til, at Europas kirker inden for perioden mellem 1. september og 4. oktober går i forbøn for naturen og holder gudstjenester med skaberværket som tema.
Allerede få dage efter kirkemødet i Sibiu begyndte man i Danmark at tage anbefalingerne til sig. Ved Københavns Domkirke valgte man at erstatte den traditionelle høstgudstjeneste med en gudstjeneste for skaberværket. Og til september næste år, kommer flere kirker sikkert til at følge domkirkens eksempel. Det vil nok især ske i byerne, hvor høstgudstjenesterne mange steder har mistet deres betydning, så man med fordel kan foretrække at holde en gudstjeneste for skaberværket.
For øjeblikket ser vi i folkekirken, at der i stigende grad arbejdes med gudstjenester med miljøet som tema. Vi ser også, at flere og flere kirkefolk erkender behovet for, at kirken ytrer sig i miljøspørgsmål. Det sker blandt andet, fordi man ønsker at handle ud fra troen på Gud som verdens skaber. Og om end vi halter bagud i forhold til kirkerne i vore nabolande, tror jeg, at de danske kirker og menigheder med tiden vil blive meget grønnere.
Det vil for eksempel være oplagt at tage ved lære af de nordiske kirker, der opfordrer menighederne til at blive "grønne menigheder". Derfor tror jeg, at vi i løbet af de kommende år kommer til at se, at flere og flere danske kirker og menighedsråd begynder at diskutere emner, der har relevans for miljøet. Eksempelvis kirkens varmeforbrug, energitjek, brug af genbrugspapir og afholdelse af gudstjenester for skaberværket.
Hvis folkekirken og frikirkerne i Danmark følger tendensen med at tage miljøet mere og mere alvorligt, kan de blive vigtige medspillere i forhold til de udfordringer, miljø- og klimaændringer stiller os over for.
KELD B. HANSEN
Præstevejen 8, Otterup, er sognepræst
PORTLAND TRIBUNE:
Christians add green crusade
More churches are viewing creation as something to care for
BY ANNE MARIE DISTEFANO
Pamplin Media Group, Dec 11, 2007
L.E. BASKOW / PAMPLIN MEDIA GROUP
Sister Patricia Nagle will be in Bali this week for a U.N. climate change conference as a representative of the World Council of Churches.
It’s Christmas, the time of year when the Christian tradition’s impact on world culture is at its glittering peak of visibility.
But a new movement within the Christian community is gearing up to make a impact in a very different, and perhaps surprising, realm: global climate change. Across denominations, Christians are increasingly embracing green values and – also, perhaps, surprisingly – from the most liberal to the most conservative, they’re finding much to agree on.
Locally, a number of religious leaders are preaching ecological issues and urging their followers to live more sustainable lives. For some of these, the climate crisis, in turn, is giving new meaning and urgency to such fundamental biblical precepts as “God created the Heavens and the Earth” and “Love thy neighbor.”
“We must address this issue,” Sister Patricia Nagle, of Portland, says of climate change. “We are bound – morally bound.”
Nagle, whose full title is Sister, Servant of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, is currently a delegate to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bali, Indonesia.
The main purpose of the convention is to begin work on climate change goals for the period after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol expires. Nagle is participating as a member of the World Council of Churches, an organization that represents 560 million Christians.
The Catholic Church historically has been involved in justice work – that is, aid programs in impoverished and disease-stricken areas. But addressing the accompanying ecological damage hasn’t been part of the equation, according to Nagle.
“For some reason, questions of the environment have not really been integrated into the justice issues,” Nagle says. “I think that culturally that can be traced to the fact that for a long time, many of us have been raised seeing ourselves separate from the natural world.”
She describes a traditional Catholic worldview in which “the goal was to get out of the world, up there, over there, where God was.”
Now, she says, there’s more of a sense that God is everywhere. “That whole cosmology has changed,” she says. “We are not separate. We are one sacred Earth community.”
Nagle serves in Portland as part of the Catholic environmental awareness organization Earth Home Ministries. She is a parishioner at St. Philip Neri Catholic Church in Southeast Portland.
Members of St. Philip Neri have become involved in sustainability in the past few years, building a bioswale to handle rainwater runoff from the church parking lot and organizing the nondenominational Muddy Boot Organic Festival, which was held for the second year this September. The church also is in the process of obtaining solar panels for one of its buildings.
This kind of involvement fits into the teachings of the church, Nagle believes. “It’s a very natural evolution,” she says – but it is an evolution.
“It’s very clear that we are at a new point of consciousness and change,” she says. “We are an interdependent global community and our faith – my faith, and the faith of many of the world’s religious and spiritual traditions – tells us that Creation is important, is of God, and that we have a responsibility to ensure that this Creation is as healthy as possible.”
Love leads to LEED
“When you think about what religion is all about, every religious tradition through time – basically it boils down to love,” says Marilyn Sewell, senior minister of the First Unitarian Church in downtown Portland.
“Right now, because the world has become so small,” Sewell says, “religion is calling us – love is calling us – to pass on a world that is viable to the next generation, and the next, and the next.”
For the past decade, a plan has been in the works to build a new community center adjoining Sewell’s church. And when the process began to build steam, about two years ago, building manager Gardner Grice says, they decided to aim for a high green standard.
The new Buchan Building, completed in June, is on track to obtain LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) gold certification. The energy-efficient building makes use of recycled materials and locally sourced products.
It’s insulated with blue jeans, equipped with water-saving fixtures, and uses Forest Stewardship Alliance-certified wood. A solar power system is on the horizon.
The center also is the new home of Unitarian Universalist Ministry for Earth, a national organization within the Unitarian Church dedicated to the seventh of the church’s seven principles: “Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.”
“Christians typically have not done so well with environmental issues,” Sewell says, “because we have this thing that Earth is made for man.” However, she says, concern for the environment now has become an issue of peace and justice: Scarce resources lead to conflict.
“As a religious people,” she says, “we have to be prophets. We have to step out there and say, Wake up! Wake up! That’s what prophets do.”
Soul, body and land united
“We’re trying to bear witness to Christ in contemporary culture,” says Paul Louis Metzger, a professor of Christian Theology and Theology of Culture at Multnomah Biblical Seminary in Northeast Portland.
Metzger is an evangelical academic who teaches about sustainability and climate change. Sometimes it’s a struggle, he says. The evangelical faith, he says, is a multifaceted belief system bound together by certain values, including conservative political views.
So while many climate change educators find “An Inconvenient Truth” to be a powerful teaching tool, the presence of liberal Al Gore undermines the credibility of the film for many evangelicals. And for creationists, Metzger notes, the mainstream scientific establishment is by no means infallible.
“Anytime someone says, ‘We’ve got a scientific view,’ ” Metzger says, “there’s a culture of suspicion built in.” However, a number of leaders in the evangelical movement, himself included, are convinced enough to preach change.
If you have doubts, he tells people, err on the side of caution. “We should be concerned for prudence and stewardship,” he says as a way of translating sustainability into biblical language.
Like many others, he feels that in the past, Christians have focused too much on themselves and not enough on the rest of creation: “We tend to divorce the human from the nonhuman Creation, and that’s not good,” he says. “When people say to me, Shouldn’t we be saving souls? I say, Absolutely … but souls are not divorced from bodies, and bodies are not divorced from land, and land from seas.”
“I think we’re waking up to the fact that it isn’t just all about us as human beings,” agrees Mark Brocker, lead pastor of St. Andrew Lutheran Church in Beaverton, who also teaches environmental ethics at the Northwest House of Theological Studies in Salem.
“I call it the ecological reformation of the church,” he says, referencing the Protestant Reformation that is at the historical root of the Lutheran faith.
This means changes big and small. The church has had a community garden for some time. More recently, members of the congregation formed a “green team.” They’re looking at a possible green remodel of the church facility, but their big project is an undeveloped seven-acre parcel belonging to the church.
It was purchased in the 1960s, and slated for construction projects that never materialized. Now, the green team plans to restore the area to a natural wetland habitat.
“If God’s the creator of the universe,” Brocker says, “human beings are called, or given a responsibility, to care for the world.” It goes back to the very beginning, he says, to Genesis, the first book of the Bible: “and God said it was good.”
annemariedistefano@portlandtribune.com
RAPPORT (WCC Climate Change Update #43) FRA "Climate change programme" fra kirkernes fælleskirkelige klima- og miljøkonference på Bali
SE VIDEO FRA GUDSTJENESTE VED KONFERENCEN
This update includes:
1. A WCC report from the UN Climate Conference in Bali Indonesia December 3-14, 2007 officially called the “13th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Conference of the Parties serving as the 3rd Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol” (COP13/CMP3 or sometimes called COP13 and COP/MOP3)). This was a critical inter-governmental negotiating session focused on a future climate policy framework for the post-2012 period after the expiration of the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. This update includes a) an overview, b) a summary of the major decisions made at COP13/CMP3 contained in the “Bali Roadmap” (www.unfccc.int), c) an analysis of the negotiations drawn from the Earth Negotiations Bulletin Report (www.iisd.ca/climate/cop13/ ) and d) a description of ecumenical involvement including the text of the WCC’s statement to the High-Level Segment (http://www.oikoumene.org/?id=5323);
2. Highlights from the synthesis report of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC-AR4) released on November 17, 2007. The IPCC-AR4 summarizes the most current climate change science, reinforces the urgency of taking actions to reduce emissions and forms an important scientific basis for the negotiations of a post-2012 climate policy framework (www.ipcc.ch).
3. The WCC Executive Committee’s policy statement on the 10th anniversary of the Kyoto Protocol;
4. Ecological engagements of His All Holiness The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew;
5. Other important developments e.g. Nobel Prize, Australia and Kyoto, 2007 environment records.
1. The UN Climate Conference in Bali, Indonesia (COP13/CMP3)
a) Overview of UN Climate Conference in Bali (COP13/CMP3)
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC – referred to as the “Climate Change Convention” for short) is a general treaty that was first adopted at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. All countries have ratified it and are bound by it. The Kyoto Protocol, adopted in 1997 as an addendum to the Climate Change Convention, includes specific emission reduction targets and timetables for developed countries. Now that Australia recently ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the United States is the only developed nation that has not ratified the Protocol.
At COP11 in Montreal in 2005, consensus had been reached to begin discussions under the umbrella of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change for a new specific international agreement that could take effect once the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. The UN was anxious to use the Climate Change Convention as the basis for these discussions because that would include the United States. It was critical that the Bali Conference in December 2007 come up with the basic framework for that new agreement since it takes about two years to negotiate the details. The agreement must be finalised by 2009 in order for countries to take it back to their parliaments for ratification (a process that takes several years) so that it can come into effect at the time that the current Kyoto commitment period expires in 2012.
Four key issues dominated the debates and negotiations in Bali:
∑ Developing countries with large tropical forests wanted a mechanism to compensate them for protecting rainforests from destruction – important since forests absorb carbon from the atmosphere;
∑ Developing countries wanted a mechanism whereby they could benefit from the transfer of energy efficiency and other emission reducing technologies at rates that they could afford. Developed nations, in which the majority of large corporations are based which have such technologies, were resistant to agree to anything that would undermine the profitability of those corporate patents and discourage further research and development.
∑ Some developed countries (particularly the United States, Japan and Canada) insisted that the larger developing nations such as China, India and Brazil agree to take on mandatory emission reduction targets in the new agreement. Developing nations resisted this demand pointing to the fact that most of the developed nations have made so little progress in limiting their own emissions while growing rich from two centuries of emission-producing industrialisation.
∑ Some developed nations (especially the European Union) wanted the new agreement to include a specific target for mandatory reductions by developed nations e.g. 25-40% reduction of emissions from 1990 levels by 2020. The United States, Canada and Japan argued aggressively against the inclusion of such a specific mandatory target.
The Bali negotiations went a full day longer that originally scheduled and resulted in the “Bali Roadmap” which sets out the general direction for the negotiations of a new global agreement.
High drama characterized the final days, especially the last 24 hours. Former US Vice-President and Nobel Prize winner Al Gore made an impassioned speech at the conference in which he accused the US of being “principally responsible for obstructing progress in Bali.” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon returned to Bali to try and broker an agreement. The EU and the US worked out a compromise on their dispute about including the specific mandatory reduction target of 25-40% from 1990 levels by 2020. They agreed not to include that target in the “Bali Roadmap” but rather to insert a reference to the scientific projections of reductions needed that are included in the most recent IPCC report. The head of the U.S. delegation, Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky, was booed Saturday afternoon when she announced that the United States was rejecting the plan as then written because they were “not prepared to accept this formulation.” She said developing countries needed to carry more of the responsibility. A short speech by a delegate from the Pacific Island nation of Papua New Guinea appeared to carry weight with the Americans. The delegate challenged the United States to “either lead, follow or get out of the way.” Just five minutes later, when it appeared the conference was on the brink of collapse, Dobriansky took to the floor again to announce the United States was willing to accept the arrangement. Applause erupted in the hall and a relative level of success for the conference appeared certain.
The “Bali Roadmap” falls short of the criteria for ecological integrity, justice, equity and solidarity as contained in the WCC Executive Committee’s September statement outlined in the WCC statement to the COP13/CMP3 High-level Ministerial plenary on December 14th (see below). The UN goal is to finalise the negotiations in two years by COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009. There are lots and lots and lots of specific details to work out and agree to over these next two years before the general language of the “Bali Roadmap” is turned into the specific details of a legally-binding global treaty. There will be many bumps on the road and the process could still get derailed. Different countries will put forward their own interpretations of what the ambiguous language of the “Bali Roadmap” means. But the process of negotiating a post-2012 climate treaty has begun. Faith communities need to continue their monitoring, advocacy and prayer at the local, regional, national and international levels.
After the adoption of the “Bali Roadmap”, the countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol (i.e. most countries with the exception of the USA) arrived at a second agreement that does include the target of a 25-40% reduction in emissions from 1990 levels by 2020 for the 38 developed nations which are parties to the Protocol. Canada, supported by Russia, objected to the inclusion of this specific target but eventually went along with the will of the majority allowing for consensus to be reached.
b) Summary of COP13/CMP3 Decisions in the “Bali Roadmap”
(adapted from BBC News web-site at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7146132.stm accessed on Dec.16, 2007)
CUTTING EMISSIONS
∑ Acknowledges that evidence for the planet warming is “unequivocal”, and that delays in reducing emissions increase the risks of “severe climate change impacts”.
∑ Recognises that “deep cuts in global emissions will be required to achieve the ultimate objective” of the UN climate convention, namely “avoiding dangerous climate change”.
∑ Decides to look at “a long-term global goal for emission reductions”.
∑ Developed nations to take on commitments that are “measurable, reportable and verifiable”, and “nationally appropriate”. May or may not include quantified, binding targets for all or some.
∑ For developing nations, “measurable, reportable and verifiable” actions “in the context of sustainable development, supported by technology and enabled by financing and capacity-building” – i.e. only with Western support.
FORESTS
∑ Pledges to consider “policy approaches and positive incentives” to reduce deforestation and conserve forest cover.
∑ Funds pledged to World Bank to initiate pilot projects under the banner of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation in Developing countries (Redd).
ADAPTATION
∑ Enhanced co-operation to “support urgent implementation” of measures to protect poorer countries against climate change impacts.
∑ Acknowledges that economic diversification can “build resilience”.
∑ Resolves to consider ways of reducing the occurrence or damage from natural disasters.
TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER
∑ Will consider how to “remove obstacles to, and the provision of financial and other incentives for, scaling up” the transfer of clean energy technologies from organizing nations to the developing world.
∑ Decides to re-instate an expert group on technology transfer to advise developing countries.
TIMESCALES
∑ A subsidiary body will begin work on the Bali roadmap as soon as possible. Views of parties to be sought by late February, and the first meeting in March or April.
∑ Further review meetings scheduled; process to complete at 2009 UN summit in Copenhagen.
The full texts of the COP13/CMP3 decisions are available on the web site of the secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change: www.unfccc.int
c) Analysis of COP13/CMP3
(drawn from the Earth Negotiations Bulletin COP13 Summary available at: http://www.iisd.ca/climate/cop13/ )
A BRIEF ANALYSIS OF COP 13 & COP/MOP 3
BALI: ISLAND OF THE GODS AND BREAKTHROUGHS”?
You should not be impelled to act for selfish reasons, nor should you be attached to inaction. (Bhagavad Gita. 2.47)
Marking the culmination of a year of unprecedented high-level political, media and public attention to climate change science and policy, the Bali Climate Change Conference produced a two-year “roadmap” that provides a vision, an outline destination, and negotiating tracks for all countries to respond to the climate challenge with the urgency that is now fixed in the public mind in the wake of the headline findings of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report. The outline destination is an effective political response that matches both the IPCC science and the ultimate objective of the Convention; it was never intended that the Bali Conference would focus on precise targets. Instead, the divergent parties and groups who drive the climate regime process launched a negotiating framework with “building blocks” that may help to square a number of circles, notably the need to reconcile local and immediate self-interest with the need to pursue action collectively in the common and long-term interests of people and planet. The informal dialogue over the past two years has now been transformed into a platform for the engagement of parties from the entire development spectrum, including the United States and developing countries.
This brief analysis opens with a discussion on the complexity of the climate change process, and describes the elements of the Bali roadmap and their potential significance in enabling negotiations on the future of the climate regime, including a post-2012 agreement. It identifies the main political achievements of the Conference, and assesses some of the specific outcomes from negotiations on the so-called “building blocks” of mitigation, adaptation, financing and technology transfer.
MANAGING COMPLEXITY
Of the 10,000 participants in the Bali Conference, it is likely only a handful of them had a meaningful grasp of all the pieces that now make up the deepening complexity of the climate change regime. Delegates in Bali had to balance meetings of the UNFCCC COP and the Kyoto Protocol COP/MOP, along with the subsidiary bodies, the Ad Hoc Working Group, dozens of contact groups and informal consultations on issues ranging from budgets to national reporting to reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries, not to mention side events held by governments, international organizations, business and industry, and environmental NGOs. Balancing the large number of participants, issues and negotiating venues requires stamina, time management and a lot of creativity. With the launch of new negotiations on a long-term agreement, which, by definition must be more ambitious than anything that has gone before, yet another piece has been added to the ever-growing complex puzzle that makes up the climate regime.
Managing this deepening complexity in a highly sensitive – and largely transparent – political environment has become an extraordinary feat, undertaken by a UNFCCC Secretariat that continues to impress participants with a combination of professionalism, competence and good humor. The UN Secretary-General’s decision to adopt climate change as one of his own UN system-wide priorities, with a more effective division of labor and lines of accountability on climate-related issues throughout the UN system, will shore up the resources required for the future. A greater emphasis on the need to draw on expertise found outside the immediate UNFCCC process was also a notable and timely feature of discussions in Bali.
Nevertheless, the challenge of defining precisely what elements of the Bali decisions and outcomes constitute the “Bali roadmap” is its own complex work in progress. For example, what exactly is the nature of the agreement that must result from the Bali roadmap? This is still a matter of debate, with divergent views on the legal form or architecture that will accommodate and, perhaps elaborate, existing commitments under the Convention and the Protocol in the near term and after 2012. So, while the Bali roadmap was never categorically defined, most are viewing it as a compendium of decisions and processes adopted and launched by the COP and COP/MOP, which can be divided into three types:
. Negotiating tracks;
. Building blocks; and
. Supporting activities, including reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.
NEGOTIATING TRACKS
The Bali roadmap builds on the negotiating tracks on long-term issues launched at the Montreal Climate Change Conference at the end of 2005. In addition to the legal necessity to address the post-2012 period after the Protocol’s first commitment period expires, the Bali roadmap aims to mend some of the fractures that have evolved in the architecture of the climate change regime, most notably the refusal of the United States to ratify the Protocol. The institutionalization of tensions between developed and developing country parties, the crisis of confidence surrounding the implementation of existing commitments, and a growing need for the distribution of responsibilities to reflect the economic power and responsibilities of major emerging economies, have also haunted the process. The Bali roadmap must continue to provide a means to re-engage the United States in negotiations on future commitments, with some level of comparability with other developed country undertakings; it must develop innovative mechanisms and incentives for the engagement of the major emerging economies; and it will be judged, above all, by the extent to which it addresses the ultimate objective of the Convention – to put the world on a path to avoid dangerous climate change – by responding, without equivocation, to the IPCC’s findings.
At the heart of the Bali roadmap are the negotiating tracks to be pursued under the newly launched Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action and the existing Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Protocol. The work of each track will be important, but – in all probability – it is the convergence of views, with each track taking the work of the other on board, that will inform deliberations on the ambition and the means for all to contribute to a future agreement or agreements.
One indication of the likely contents of the roadmap came early on in Bali in an intervention by COP President Witoelar during the Contact Group on Long-term Cooperative Action. He explained that the roadmap has a track for negotiations under the Convention, with a milestone in 2008, and a destination in 2009. The centerpiece of this track is the decision on the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action, which for the first time sets out a negotiating agenda that encompasses discussions on mitigation for both developing and developed countries. Since the negotiations will take place under the Convention, they will include all parties – developing countries and the US. However, there is some question as to the nature of the mandate for this track, other than a reference to the ultimate objective of the Convention. Some have contrasted the work of this AWG with the stronger mandate built into the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Berlin Mandate, which resulted in the Kyoto Protocol. “We may have to return to the COP to clarify and strengthen the mandate; for the moment we have taken a leap of faith,” said one observer, hoping that the work would result in a binding agreement.
On the Protocol track is the work programme, methods and schedule of future sessions of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Protocol. Important aspects of the work of the AWG will be taken on board and feed into the second review of the Protocol under Article 9 at COP/MOP 4.
One of the most significant developments in Bali was a shift that the Executive Secretary likened to the “dismantling of the Berlin Wall.” While a “two-track” approach will continue and maintain a degree of separation between discussions under the Convention and the Protocol, the decision on the AWG on Long-Term Cooperative Action uses for the first time language on “developed” and “developing” countries, rather than “Annex I” and “non-Annex I” countries. This is widely regarded as a breakthrough, as it offers the prospect of moving beyond the constraints of working within only Annex I and non-Annex I countries when defining future contributions to a future agreement. It is anticipated that new approaches to differentiating contributions, tied to countries’ economic capacity, will form part of the future architecture. Moreover, the new AWG will also fully engage and address the future role of the US, which has not ratified the Protocol.
The risk in all of this, identified by some developing country parties, is that certain Annex I parties may seize on this development to “jump ship” and attempt to adopt more relaxed commitments than those under the Kyoto Protocol. This led to proposals for a “firewall” that would lock existing Annex I parties into the most ambitious end of the commitment spectrum.
BUILDING BLOCKS
Integral to the emerging and no doubt cross-fertilizing work programmes across the negotiating tracks are the so-called “building blocks” of mitigation, adaptation, technology and finance. These key issues were considered both under the roadmap negotiations and in related talks on topics such as the Adaptation Fund.
With evidence that the confidence-building phase of negotiations has begun to yield some results in terms of the re-engagement of the US and engagement of major developing country economies, the Bali Conference was regarded by some, notably the EU and major NGOs, as the moment to lock the process into evidence-based negotiations on mitigation and commitments. The timing and ambition of the EU’s agenda was not unexpected and contributed to some of the fiercest exchanges between negotiators.
MITIGATION: The debate on mitigation, notably the terms of engagement by developing countries, in the context of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action, was not resolved until the COP plenary on Saturday. Under the gaze of unprecedented media attention, India turned the final hours of negotiations into something approaching a Bollywood Blockbuster, with star-studded cameo roles by none other than the UN Secretary-General and the President of Indonesia, calling on parties to close a deal. Up until Saturday afternoon, the prospect of a collapse of the negotiations was not ruled out by senior participants.
In a defining moment of the Conference, at the final and dramatic COP plenary session, the US stood down from its opposition to a proposal by India, supported by the G-77/China. The Indian proposal aimed to ensure that mitigation actions by developing country parties are supported by technology, financing and capacity building, subject to measurable, reportable and verifiable procedures. This new paragraph has far-reaching implications for linking developing country participation in a future agreement and confidence that they will access the means to deliver. Fired by a suspicion that developed countries had set up future negotiations that might relax their own commitments, while placing too much onus on developing country contributions, India deftly seized the momentum for the closure of a deal on the roadmap, in the full gaze of the world’s media, to introduce a new rigor to the delivery of developed country commitments on capacity building. Introducing this outstanding debate into the final COP plenary on Saturday was just one of the high-risk strategies deployed to press for closure on issues that had played out for days behind closed doors. In the end, after phone calls reportedly involving Washington, the US delegation dropped its opposition to the Indian proposal, stung by rebuffs from South Africa and Papua New Guinea and lengthy applause from delegates and observers who favored the proposal.
The mitigation debate was also behind contested approaches to referencing the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. This battle was fought on two fronts: under the Protocol and under the Convention. In the AWG under the Protocol, Russia, Canada, and Japan lined up to oppose a reference to the 25-40% greenhouse gas emissions reduction range in the AWG’s report from Vienna, which included this and other quotes from the IPCC AR4. Noting that media coverage was feeding public expectations that countries were “going to agree” to reductions in this range and that “we have to be careful about presenting the range as the target,” the Russian Federation continued its opposition all the way to the AWG closing plenary. Canada and Japan, which had argued in the informal consultations that Russia should be heeded, changed their position after a concerted campaign by AOSIS to insert a comprehensive reference to the IPCC AR4.
There was less success on the Convention front in the Dialogue on Cooperative Action, where the reference to the IPCC science is weaker. AOSIS was unable to summon up the support for a stronger reference when negotiators met in a small informal group to close on this issue. Participants believe that this will be a weaker starting point for negotiations on cooperative action under the Convention, and the IPCC references may have to be revisited.
ADAPTATION AND FINANCE: One of the significant outcomes bringing together both adaptation and finance was the decision to operationalize the Adaptation Fund, which was set up to finance adaptation in developing countries. The Fund had proven to be particularly delicate to negotiate because, unlike other funds under the UNFCCC, it is funded through a levy on CDM projects undertaken in developing countries and is therefore not dependent on donors. At past meetings, proposals to appoint the GEF as the Fund’s manager have generated controversies between developed and developing countries, and an agreement on the Adaptation Fund Board, operating under the guidance of the COP/MOP, was a significant breakthrough. However, the early stages of the Conference were marked by intensive lobbying by representatives from the GEF who were determined to secure a role in servicing the Fund. In the end, they secured an interim role in providing a secretariat function.
The establishment of the Adaptation Fund was widely applauded. It was also seen as one of several positive outcomes for the G-77/China at this meeting, which some observers note are a reflection of the increasing economic and political clout of this group.
TECHNOLOGY: The basis for an interim funding programme under the GEF was brokered behind the scenes early in the Conference, although agreement on the final details was complicated. Technology funding is expected to be scale
